Generation, Age, and Meaning - Assignment Example

GENERATION, AGE AND MEANING By Location Generation, Age, and Meaning Question Age and Aging I am twenty-four years old. This means that I am an adult with other responsibilities, which are different from that of a child. According to Hendricks, a person becomes an adult after he or she reaches eighteen years and above (p. 3). Being twenty-four years old, I now know that I have new rights such as voting, making contracts in my own name, and being completely independent. I also have new responsibilities, which are held individually accountable for my actions. Currently, I am a different person with new responsibilities and rights, which are different from those of a child or a teenager. I am currently having all the rights and responsibilities of an adult except that of taking alcohol. I am now out of control of my parents and I can differentiate between good and bad actions. I have some other responsibilities after the age of 18 that I was not able to perform before such as voting (Hendricks 2008, p. 109). If am involved in any criminal case, my charges will be taken to adults court and not juvenile court. There are several ways in which am different from when I was a child. To begin with, when I was a child, my thinking was characterized by fantasies. On the other hand, my current thinking is based on practical experiences. When I was a child or a teenager, I was so prone to the infatuation’s pulls, but during my current life course, am capable of checking the infatuation’s pulls. This is one of the major differences between my adult life and teenage life (Katz 2008, p. 140). Additionally, am currently able to decipher between what is bad and what is good among other differences. ‘Theorise age’ means the process of looking and understanding several aging theories that explain the meaning of aging. Gerontology is the new science of studying age that has marked a relative progress for the last thirty years. Before, scientists were only looking at one theory that was explaining aging, but currently there are several theories of aging. Gerontologists are the ones who play the responsibility of theorising age. It is true that occasions in our lives encourage us to think more deeply about what it means to pass through the life cycle. People have different characters at different stages of the life cycle. For instance, the characters of children are much different from those of adults (Katz 2008, p. 144). Additionally, people have different behaviours and thinking capabilities, and these differences encourage gerontologists to think more deeply about what it means to pass through the life cycle (to age). The reflection of Katz and Hendricks on ‘coming of age’ contributes a lot towards our understanding of the study of aging. The of these two gerontologists helps us understand the difference between an adult and a child. Their works are reflections of how peoples experiences have shaped and inspired their ideas about gerontology (Hendricks 2008, p. 113). Through their works, one can conclude that people’s ideas about aging breed on those places where conflict, humour, tragedy, sympathy, and passion make it imperative. Question 2: Age and Generation Nationalism studies have rarely looked at the relationship between nationalism and generations. Gerontologist studies have come up with several aspects that form the connection between generations. According to Andrews, these aspects include consciousness, politics, and narrative. However, what forms the connection between generations is personal experience. The older generations always have many life experiences than younger generations (Edmunds & Turner 2002, p. 43). For, instance, if two generations have to respect one another, the young generation must show respect to the older generation thus the connection between the two generations. All human beings living in a particular time construct are as well constructed from stories. At the same time, these stories pass from one generation to another. These are cultural identity stuff that a generation inherits from its preceding generation and passes to the succeeding generation. Therefore, each generation owes the preceding and succeeding generations the cultural identities (Laslett 1992, p. 42). The current generation inherits cultural identities from its parents, which are the preceding generation and passes theses identities to their children (succeeding generation). Several aspects of our society exist that enhances the prospects for conversation between generations. Education is one of the societal aspects that affect conversation between generations. Another societal factor that enhances conversation between generations is technological advancement. The argument of Laslett “duties go forwards in time, but rights go backwards” means that as an individual get old, his or her duty increases while the rights decreases with time. Some of the duties and rights that I think accrue to me as the member of my generation includes right to vote and duties such as working as an employee (Edmunds & Turner 2002, p. 56). Such duties and rights come from the set rights and duties for people when they reach a certain age. Generational intelligence is the way of examining the intergenerational relationships’ process. Each generation brings new views to the world, whereby these views create both threats and opportunities. This creation of new threats and opportunities requires generational intelligence (Laslett 1992, p. 45). Therefore, generational intelligence means that one must understand the behaviours and characters of a certain generation. Several factors contribute to people feeling that they belong to a certain generation. These factors include age, education, and financial status. The people of the same age and education feel that they belong to the same generation. These factors have influence on generations’ engagement on political issues. According to Hendricks, a person becomes an adult after he or she reaches eighteen years and above (Edmunds & Turner 2002, p. 62). The two writers enable us to understand that the more an individual gets older the more his or her responsibilities and duties increase. Question 3: Meaning of age After interviewing three groups of people, the answers revealed that each group had its own meaning of age. The young ones argued that age is the length of time that a living organism has existed. The middle-age responded that aging is loss, change, and being unable to do anything (Moody 1992, p. 52). The older group claimed that aging is adding more years to your life, less active, more medicine, less hair, arthritis, more forgetful, and more wrinkles. The responses of the three groups revealed that age is gaining more experience in life and not being unable to carry out any duty. The ages of these three groups were 13 to 40, 40 to 65, and 65 and above for youth, middle age, and older people respectively. Age means the length of time a thing has existed or an individual has lived. It is a distinct period in history. On the other hand, aging means loss, change, and being unable to do anything. It is adding more years to your life, less active, more medicine, less hair, arthritis, more forgetful, and more wrinkles (Townsend, Godfrey & Denby 2006, p. 884). The responses of the older groups indicated that when people get old, they lose their independence and dignity. Common responses revealed that aging means that an individual needs a helper and that he or she is unable to do anything. Additionally, aging is the process of gaining more experiences and more privileges. After comparing my ideas with those of my interviewees, I understood that old means having lived for many years and a long time. Being old denotes the status of attaining a considerable age. Analysis of the answers that they gave showed that being old starts after one attains 54 years and above. Therefore, being twenty-four years old, I am not old but young. According to Hendricks, a person becomes an adult after he or she reaches eighteen years and above and an adult when she reaches 54 years and above. Being twenty four years old, I now know that I have new rights such as voting, making contracts in my own name, and being completely independent (Moody 1992, p. 57). I also have new responsibilities, which are held individually accountable for my actions, but I am not yet old. Life in old age means freedom, companionship, slowing down, loneliness, changes, loss, active engagement, and faith. Every old person mentions freedom enjoyment and physical decline challenge. Freedom from financial strain and work gives old people to involve in volunteer activities, attend activities as well as enjoying their lives. Middle age is the life between old age and youth usually between 40 to 65 years. Life in middle age means hardworking, doing what you always aspire to do, choose what you like to do and perform it, developing new skills, getting in touch with yourself, and getting a life (Townsend, Godfrey & Denby 2006, p. 887). Lastly, youth is the life linking childhood and adulthood. Life here is the quality or state of being young. Youth life is usually accompanied by rush decision-making, immaturity, and youthful vigour. Moody suggests that every individual should think about life as a whole and focus on unity of human life. The main aspects of life that help me to support this suggestion are birth, love, death, and pain. There are more aspects, but these four covers what are behind the rest. Moody’s suggestion is a realizable and desirable goal (Moody 1992, p. 76). My expectations of old age include loss of memory, illness, and inability to drive, decrease in sexual desire, depression, and loneliness. These expectations come from what have seen from old people in my society. I agree with Townsend et al arguments regarding how older people see themselves and others their aging. This is because the various old age images relate to management and people’s self-identity of the process of ageing (p. 90). The findings of the study contribute to the understanding of how individuals’ values strengthen their ‘good old age’ conceptions and their interpretations of societal stereotypes. Question 4: Age and Dementia In several ways, our memories shape the sense of our self. An individual is able to have a sense of identity because he or she knows that he or she is the same person she was yesterday and she or he will be undoubtedly the same person tomorrow. We first become aware of our identities at our tender age, perhaps eighteen months when we recognize that the image we see in a mirror is really us and not another person (Freeman 2007, p. 67). As we start progressing through childhood, our memories start developing set of view or schemas about our identity, thus shaping our sense of who we are. Dementia is a general term used to define declining mental ability, which severe enough to affect our daily life. Loss of memory is common in older people and this damage interferes with the brain cells’ ability to communicate with one another. As a result, this affects the behaviour, thinking, and feelings of the older people. As people get older, there is a possibility of them losing their memory and facing memory problematic issues such as forgetting names of people they know and their identity. Memory loss causes ultimate death and malfunction of brain cells, thus causing impacts on an individual identity. Personal narratives assist people in making sense of their experiences. One of the essential measures of people’s success in drawing life meaning from events is a personal narrative coherence that they construct about these events. Indeed, narrative coherence is a significant concept across narrative studies in several domains, which include autobiographical memory, communication, understand of oneself and others, and identity formation (Freeman 2007, p. 69). For instance, supplementary coherent personal narratives results in better memory, more effective communication, deeper self-understanding, and stronger identity. In addition, coherent personal narratives have also resulted in better psychological and physical health. Therefore, personal narratives must always be coherent. The ‘tragic promise’ that Freeman refers to is the leaders’ promises to address the issue of dementia among aged people. Most leaders promised that by the end of 2015, dementia should be curable. The powerful countries have promised to find means of ending dementia. Leaders have been promising to find new treatments that will fight against the condition of dementia. Most leaders have promised to address the issue of dementia in a similar way as HIV/AIDs and cancer pledging for significant funding and extra scientific co-operation. Imagination plays a vital role in sustaining a sense of self, in the face of cognitive decline. Imagination is vital since it is the key to our life progress. Imagination enables one to think about his or her past, thus sustaining the sense of our self. Imagination not only creates personal narratives, but also creates a new vision in the way people conduct themselves (Freeman 2007, p. 97). All inventions that take place across the world result from imagination. Therefore, imagination plays a very vital role in sustaining our sense of self. Question 5: Cultural Perspectives on aging In both communities, older people are regarded in the same manner. Older people are treated equally and they are not discriminated. In addition, the two communities treat older people in a dignified way and allowed privacy (Gardner 2002, p. 67). The old people are safeguarded from harm and danger, and allowed access to use their own means of language and communication. The two communities support older people in a way that ensures they meet their needs. The different between our community and the other community is that the other community takes almost all older people in nursing while in our community we take care of the old people in our homes. Several structural determinants of social structural elements that affect the aged status exist. Most people suggest that these structural determinants possess universal validity, and therefore the status of aged people from all cultures depend upon these determinants. Varying cultural lifestyles alters the status of aging (Gardner 2002, p. 73). The only generalization that can be made about old people across cultures is that they are treated with a lot of respect and care. In addition, older people across cultures have more experience about life events than middle aged and the youths. Old age is more responsive to cultural conditioning than other periods of life. This is because the cultural beliefs of older adults pertain to death and illness than in other stages of life. Older adults are more responsive to cultural beliefs and practices than the middle-aged and youths. Old age in the West so often, represent a loss of meaning of culturally dominant symbols because of technological advancement. The advancement of technology in western countries has highly contributed to the decline of the meaning of culturally dominant symbols (Gullette 2004, p. 56). The use of information and technology devices such as computers and internet in western countries is causing many people to forget about their cultures even the aged group. The population of western countries comprises of people from different ethnicities thus contributing to loss of meaning of culturally dominant symbols in the country. Western nations view of time as linear influence our views of age and aging. Being trapped in new time machines, the practices of western nations highly affects our view of age and aging. In western nations, due to technology advancement, you can even find an old person being able to work, for instance using a computer, and thus affecting our views that older people are unable to work (p. 78). The advancement of technology in western nations is highly affecting our understanding on age and aging. With the technology advancement, both the youth and the aged people are able to carry out similar activities. Bibliography Edmunds, J, & Turner, BS 2002, Generational consciousness, narrative, and politics, Lanham, Md, Rowman & Littlefield. Freeman, MP 2007, Finding the muse: A sociopsychological inquiry into the conditions of artistic creativity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gardner, K 2002, “Ways of telling” in Age, narrative and migration: The life course and life histories of Bengali elders in London Oxford: Berg. Gullette, M 2004, “Trapped in the new time machines” in Aged by culture Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Hendricks, J 2008, Coming of age, Journal of Aging Studies, 22(2), 109-114. Katz, S 2008, Thinking of age: Personal reflections on critical gerontology, Journal of Aging Studies, 22(2), 140-146. Laslett, P1992, Is there a generational contract? Journal of Aging Studies, 22(2), 40-46. Moody, HR 1992, The meaning of life in old age, In Aging and ethics (pp. 51-92). Humana Press. Townsend, J, Godfrey, M, & Denby, T 2006, Heroines, villains and victims: older peoples perceptions of others, Ageing and Society, 26(6), 883-900. Read More